Off-topic, but the each page of the site (not just the one linked to) makes my browser freeze for a couple of seconds and downloads ~3mb of crap. I don't think the ninja rockstar guru programmers are the only ones capable of writing a bubble sort and optimizing a page load.

You can't avoid dealing with javascript when doing web development. Before you mention something like coffeescript, I have to say first that the mixin, forwarding and delegating code were only several lines long. Compare that to the amount of code used to compile to javascript.

> The course would be difficult or impossible to complete using most other languages. The keyword is: homoiconicity, the "code=data" property of Lisp.

But if that is the case, wouldn't SICP be less language agnostic since (most of) the concepts taught cannot be universally applied to non-homoiconic languages?

The problems can be solved in other languages, the tools are just clunkier. Lisp lets you solve the hard problems simply, and the solutions (not their expression) are what matters.